Being Wrong
To err is human. But we really hate being wrong, right?
Kathryn Schulz spent five years of her life studying how we react to being wrong. Or better yet, how often we assume we’re right when we have misunderstood the signs around us.
It’s brilliant work, and in the latter part of her talk, she outlines some of the dangerous assumptions we make when we are challenged on what we believe. When someone doesn’t think we are right, we first assume the opposition is just ignorant, and needs to hear the truth from us. If that doesn’t work, we assume they are morons, and can’t grasp what we have learned. If all else fails, we assume they are evil, since they have heard the truth, and are intelligent enough to understand it but are choosing not to agree. Sound familiar? Rather than reconsidering our position, we are much more likely to decide to attack, which makes being wrong (or, more accurately, believing that we’re right) a source for much cruel treatment in the world.
But there is beautiful symmetry to this behavior as well. While we resist being wrong, we love our books, movies and games to mislead us with plot twists and surprise endings. In the abstract, and in fantasy, and the stories we tell ourselves, we recognize the essential humanness being wrong, and embrace it. It pulls us in, because we all share it and can relate.
In the coming week, I challenge you to do 5 things differently to take advantage of the new perspective being wrong can give you:
1. Strike up a conversation with someone who has a different political affiliation from your own. Examine the assumptions you have made about their views (and their sanity or goodness).
2. Think about the last big argument you had. What ideas were you not willing to reconsider? What about the other person?
3. Take a look at the competitor to your Brand and think as if you were them - what would they say is wrong with your Brand and its view of the world? Are you a stubborn Brand?
4. Find a piece of your Brand’s story where you can reverse the plot, and make a new discovery because of being wrong.
5. Take a fresh look at your consumers. What data are you ignoring because it doesn’t fit with what you believe to be true about them? What if you were wrong? How could you find out?
Be wrong a little this week. Or at least consider the possibility!
Via TED
